Micachu again?!

A fast, fun music game to play, to learn more about your friends’ musical tastes, or, um, what they’ve been hiding on their iPods. My list is below. It only takes a few minutes!

Once you’ve been tagged… (1) Turn on your iPod, MP3 player or iTunes. (2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode. (3) Write down the first 15 songs that come up–song title and artist–NO editing/cheating, please. (4) Choose 25 (or so) people to be tagged [edit… or DON’T. You go right ahead and choose however many people you wish]. It is generally considered to be in good taste to tag the person who tagged you.

If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about your musical tastes, or at least a random sampling thereof.

(To do this, go to “NOTES” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, enter your 15 Shuffle Songs, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click Publish, the little blue box at the bottom of your screen).

Sean, I will give you my list and raise you a comment for each track. (My only warning is that my iTunes on my laptop is oversaturated with certain things and lots of music has sadly been banished to external HD exile due to space concerns–I should get that figured out.) Here goes:

“Train For A Brain,” Micachu (Filthy Friends – Mix Tape Vol. 1). Comment: A fellow music critic once described Micachu & The Shapes as dance music as interpreted by Pokemon characters. I probably haven’t remembered that comparison exactly right, but at any rate I think it’s more or less an apt comparison, and I think it’s a good thing.

“Pelas Ruas Que Andei (Ao Vivo),” Alceu Valença (Pelas Ruas Que Andei). Comment: More music from northeast Brazil. I had a friend drop a motherload of the stuff onto my computer a few months back. This is more like gospel compared to the last track; gospel with with wacky keyboards.

“Pamuromo,” by Chiwoniso (Rebel Woman). Comment: Marvelous singer/songwriter/mbira player from Zimbabwe. She’s so cool that I think I have become cooler simply because I had dinner with her after watching her record in a studio session once.

“Aus,” Fennesz (Hotel Paral.lel). Comment: The funny thing is that the shuffle is not only making great choices, but linking tracks that fit great next to each other. Chi’s rich voice moves to Arthur’s rich echo-drenched cello-and-voice moves to Fennesz’s rich miasma of electronics moves to…

“Tshitua Fuila Mbuloba,” Kasai Allstars (In the 7th Moon, the Cheif Turned Into a Swimming Fish and Ate the Head of His Enemy by Magic). Comment: …a pan-tribal Congolese spiritual with multi-part harmonies, not to mention the best album title ever!

“Divisions Of Joy,” J*Davey (The Beauty In Distortion). Comment: Slightly weird R&B pop with processed beats, just begging for an Auto-tune vocalist. This album always comes on when I have shuffle on; I don’t know how this got on my computer because I don’t usually listen to this kind of music, though I’m fairly certain it came from the same place as all that Brazilian music and my friend Jon plays keyboards on it.

“Lick Ur,” Micachu (Filthy Friends – Mix Tape Vol. 1). Comment: This mix has 33 tracks and a lot of them have a bizarre London grime vibe–the distinctly British side of Michachu’s Pokemon dance coin, I suppose.

“Nafrouha l’youme,” Abderrahmane Djalti (Choufi). Comment: Layers of live and processed percussion and very fake sounding keyboard horns and strings achieve such great heights of sentimentality with such a low budget.

“North Six (Live),” Gang Gang Dance (Hillulah). Comment: 12 minutes of GGD back when they were a quasi-tribal stoner jam project. What is that I hear, a megaphone alarm run through a sampler?